The rule of thirds is at play for this shot. It was divided in three equal parts with the primary subject -- the man in the moving boat -- being placed one third down the image.
On the promenade fronting the bay of Cheung Chau protected by two long arms of breakwaters extending some hundreds metres offshore, I spent over an hour shooting pictures. The bay, serving as a shelter for vessels during stormy weather, had an inherited peaceful quality to it even though the vessels were bustling about.
I highlighted the man by placing him at the intersection of the vertical and horizontal lines according to the Golden Ratio. Added to this basic measure was the expanse of water in the background which hopefully arouses the viewers' imagination of the route the boat has moved along, thus eventually giving a longer attention to the man.
Long-time readers may recall my comments about the focusing issues somehow plaguing the like of NX10. The focusing with these cameras is generally reliable. To these cameras, however, there are four foes: the less brightly-lit scenes, less contrasty subjects, zoom lenses with longer focal length and macro mode. Once experienced, these factors can deter potential buyers from acquiring such a system because under these conditions, it can take some tens of seconds to lock the focus.
Here, probably I had the time to try and err, the focusing didn't seem to pose a problem. Again, apart from reading hands-on reports, it is always advisable to try your targeted camera preferably for a few days before making up your mind. At least, play with it at a store.
I strolled along the promenade and this scene of three old ladies caught my eye. They were chit-chatting on the bench. Quickly I replaced the zoom lens with the pancake lens on the NX10. I aimed but didn't shoot at once. The final image would not look nice with all of them showing their backs to my camera. It will be nice that a sneak shot is made not like one.
So I waited until one of the oldies noticed me and stared at me over her shoulder. Whether it was pleasure or displeasure filling her eyes I didn't know. Well, I was too engrossed in catching this very moment I had hoped for.
Before leaving this place so paradoxically mixed with busyness and serenity, I took a few more shots trying to draw some patterns in the final images with the outlines of the vessels.
A last note should be added that for some of the shots, I made used of the NX10's customisable colour function to mute the colours of the scenes. The results are fantastic, or at least better than NX10's black-and-white tone. For black-and-white images, I recommend GXR, followed by GF-1.
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